After leaving Little Lamplight for the 20th time after once again not being able to get into Vault 87, I headed in a Northerly direction. As I approached KT-8 tower, near the drainage ditch entrance, a big explosion occured in the sky. Vertibird parts then rained down. I scoured the area, killed the supermutants by the tower, but found nothing. What was that all about?

Have you finished the Waters of Life and talked to Rothchild and you still can't get into V87?

RE: Vertibird

There is a random encounter there that happens with a Vertibird although I don't remember parts; just the explosions, but I've only seen it once. Usually raining parts from the sky mean the Firelance encounter, but those are little glowing bits unmistakenly labeled as Alien Ammo. I'm surprised that the Vertibird happens before you've done the Waters of LIfe, although you may have done it already and are experiencing the bug that makes the quest mess up. If you play on the PC, I believe there's away around it if you do. It used to be in the wiki.

I have done the Waters of Life quest. I have talked to scribe Rothchild. What is the bug? I'll look through the wiki to see if I can find it.

this actually kinda sounds like the firelance encounter that you may have interpreted wrong

Do you want a walk through for getting into the vault or just a hint?

Don't worry about random explosions, randomness is one of the joys of F3.

I used the console command "activate" on the terminal by the back door. I had looked through three different walk throughs, and searched the forum for help. Nothing listed helped.

You need to speak to one of the kids about the door, he'll tell it's got a password that they can't crack (or something) and the power's been turned off to it. He'll turn it back on if asked and you can crack the code if you have high enough science, it's only an average one and you can put on a lab coat and take ments to give yourself a boost if necessary.

I know who you are talking about. I spoke to him at least 20 times, same for the other named kids. I spoke to all at least ten times.

Did you do the quest to rescue the children from the slavers?

Yes I did. Also have Child at Heart.

Is the quest still marked as active? There's a PC bug that can result it in being marked completed even though you haven't gone into the vault.

The order of dialogues is speak to MacCready (the mayor) about accessing the vault, he'll tell you to speak to Joseph.

I spoke to McCready first, and never got the dialogue for either vault entrance. I will keep an eye on things next play through. I've completed the main quest and Broken Steel with this guy.

I had this random event recently but was in DC ruins. There were bits flying everywhere but again it might have been their bombs causing other thigns to explode and send fragments flying than the actual vertibird itself. I did see it actually do a bombing run and it looked like they were aiming for some Talon Company at the time....

Hadn't heard about a Lamplight vault access bug before, it's always worked for me either taking the pass or getting Joseph to help out with the console. Does anyone know what tends to trigger this bug?

Sometimes those explosions will rain down alien power cells. If it was in the wastes during the day they are really hard to see, but at night you ll see them clearly. If your karma and speech r not super high the only way you r getting into lamp light is to save the lamplighters in Paradise Falls. You could just buy them as well.

Who cares about that terminal go through the other door that dosent have a terminal. So what you ll have to kill like 10 supermutant what do you think vault 87 is full off???

oh wow did you talk to the little girl by the pass??? if so then it must be a bug. It never happened to me in like 5 play throughs.